A/N: This chapter introduces a cool ability Snape taught Briar. This ability will be represented by being italics AND bold. Watch for the changes. Going forward, here is the key:

Character thoughts

Conversations mentally between characters

Dreams/Flashbacks

Make sense? Cool! This chapter is dedicated to Kenna (Guest) who gave me my first review! Thank you so much for your review and I'm so glad you're enjoying the story so far, love. Without further ado, here's chapter 19!

Draco POV

I walk around the hallways of Hogwarts and stick to the shadows in case any Professors are wandering around. Thankfully, being a Prefect has its perks, but I'm too distracted to come up with excuses of why I'm out when it's not my night to patrol. Turning the corner, I find myself at the Room of Requirement. Taking one last glance around, I crack open the door and slip in before slowly shutting the door so it doesn't make any noise. With a deep breath, I let out all of the stress from my body and brace my hands on the door with my head hung in defeat.

"I'm so sorry," I whisper. Her hands slide up my back to my shoulders and I feel them gently press into my shoulders in a slow massage. With her next words, her hands slide from my shoulders to my biceps.

"You don't have anything to apologize for. There was no way you could've warned us," she whispers in a soothing voice. I turn around and lean against the door so her hands rest on my chest now. I stare down into her green eyes and she stares back at me with a small smile. My hands rest on her slim waist as my thumbs rub against her hips.

"I could've tried to reach out to you. I know you and Snape have been working on connecting mentally with others. I didn't even try. I didn't…" She grabs my face between her hands urgently.

"Stop," she says in a serious tone. I stare at her in defeat with sadness in my eyes. "Yes, I have been working on that with Snape, but we haven't talked about how you would be able to connect with me. There was nothing you could've done so stop beating yourself up, Draco. You're not some villain that needs to apologize for every move he makes where something wrong happens." I nod my head sadly and move my hands to lightly caress her arms, but I see her wince. I pull my hands away quickly as if she burned me.

"Merlin! I'm so…"

"If you say sorry, I will hex you," she says in a teasing tone. I pull on her sleeve indicating I want to see what Goyle did to her. She sighs before removing her school robes to reveal a bright blue, long sleeved sweater. Placing her hands on the bottom of the sweater, she glances up at me cautiously. "Are you sure you want to see? I thought you were going to murder him in Dumbledore's office and when you see what he did…" I cut her off.

"No secrets, Briar. Please show me," I ask pleadingly. She nods her head slowly and lowers her eyes as her hands lift the sweater over her head slowly before holding it in her hands.

Rage. Pure, uncontrollable rage is what I feel. On her upper arms, there is clear bruising of fingertips wrapping around her bicep. The deep reds and purples swirl together angrily. I can tell she'll have the bruises for a while and that fact makes me even more angry if that's even possible.

"Dray?" She whispers. I look into her eyes and she gasps probably from the pure hatred she sees in my eyes. I see how watery her eyes have gotten and I can tell she is trying to stay strong as if to not anger me more by showing she's in pain. Her arms must be throbbing angrily from the circulation being cut off so harshly.

"What did he say?" I see her brow scrunch up in confusion. "When he first grabbed you in the Room of Requirement, he said something that made you slap him. What did he say?" She swallows in nervousness before opening her mouth to answer my question in a soft voice. She's so quiet, I have to lean a little closer to hear her.

"I do love watching a girl struggle," she says nervously. I nod my head slowly and she watches me apprehensively. I turn towards the wall that held the entrance moments ago and slam my right fist into the door, filling the room with a loud crack.

"DRACO!" She grabs my arm and I rip it away angrily causing her hand to slip from my bicep. I slam my hand into the door again, but this time with my palm before taking a few deep breaths. After taking a few moments to calm down, I finally turn to face Briar and apologize for ripping my arm away…Except she isn't where I expect her to be. Standing a few feet away from me in her Animagus form with her ears back and tail down, she's staring up at me. I look at her feeling the guilt crawl up the back of my neck like a chill. I go to take a step towards her and fall to my knees heavily in front of her.

"Love, I'm sorry. Goyle just…Having to watch how he man handled you and knowing now that you'll be bruised because of him. I just want to protect you and I can't even do that," I whisper. She stares at me and grunts at me with her ears still down against the side of her head in apprehension, but takes a hesitant step forward. I let out a sigh and cross my legs to sit on the ground with my head looking down at my right hand. Blood is slowly seeping out of it and I can see it is badly crushed. Flexing it, I groan and let out a pained "Merlin," as I feel my hand strain to move as I observe a piece of bone that is peaking out of my skin. I look up and see Briar has taken more steps towards me and was in the process of lowering her head to my hand as she lowers her body to lay on the grass in front of me. Lowering my eyes from her green eyes, I see the necklace I got her for Christmas dangling around her neck and resting on top of her Animagus' coarse hair.

Let me heal you.

I look up at Briar's eyes in shock and see her staring right at my hand. Her eyes look up to glance into my eyes before I hear her voice in my head again.

Let me heal you. Please, my dragon.

She stares at me pleadingly and I look at her with my mouth hanging open in shock. I numbly nod my head before I watch her change back to her human form right in front of my eyes. Now in human form, she reaches her hands forward towards my injured hand while kneeling in front of me with a determined look on her face. I hiss in pain when I feel her hands caress mine, but I just stare at her face in wonder.

She just spoke to me in my mind.

I see her eyes glance at me in concern from the state of my hand before taking a deep breath. Keeping her eyes trained on mine, she begins speaking.

"I'm going to feel the pain. To heal you, I have to draw the pain out and reverse the effects that happened when you hit the wall so you're going to see me experience the same pain you felt when you tried to fight the wall," she said with a slight shakiness to her voice. I see her smirk to try and make light of the situation, but I just stare at her in horror that I'm the reason she has to feel my pain. She rolls her eyes causing me to stare at her in confusion. She quietly says "mind connection" with a smirk to explain she heard my thoughts before I see her grimace. Looking down. I see a light blue glow around my hand that's barely noticeable, but I can see the effects immediately. Right in front of my eyes, my hand is healing and the pain diminishes. I hear her take a deep breath and my eyes quickly move to look at her face.

Looking up, I see her eyes are shut and she grimaces every few moments until her hands fall away from mine. I see her face relax and her eyes meet mine again. I realize how tired she looks before glancing at my hand to see it's as if nothing happened.

"How?"

"Snape," she says tiredly. Peering up at her face, I see she has a thin sheen of sweat on her forehead. "He has been teaching me how to transfer my healing abilities to others. We can't get around the side effect of me feeling the pain though so he has been helping me…tolerate pain," she whispers. She must see the question in my eyes, but she shakes her head and says "Don't ask." Nodding my head, I think back to how she had healed her ankle in seconds when she twisted it in Dumbledore's office. She runs the back of her hand over her forehead to collect the perspiration that collected there before grabbing her shirt from the floor to shrug it back on tiredly.

"Are you okay?" She nods her head at me and sends a small smile my way.

"Yeah. I'm working on the whole endurance thing, but it still makes me tired depending on the injury. Healing bones is one of the areas where it drains me faster just like internal and life threatening injuries would." I nod my head in understanding and continue with my questioning to understand better.

"So that's how you healed in Dumbledore's office earlier?" She nods her head. "And you can heal anything?" She shakes her head no.

"There are certain things I can't heal," she says while rolling up her sleeve where her branding from Umbridge is still carved into her skin. "I can't heal something that is on the outside of my skin that has already scarred. I can heal internal injuries and major life threating injuries within reason, but scars? I can't get rid of those and healing others is still relatively new so I don't know my limits on that yet. I can assume that I would have been able to heal this scar if I tried moments after it happened when it was still fresh, but I guess I'm stuck with this on me now."

I look at her and see she's battling something inside her head, but I don't have time to answer before the door appears and Potter is standing in a crack in the door. I roll my eyes and stand when Briar goes to move from her kneeling position in front of me.

"What in Merlin's name are you doing here, Potter?" I snarl out. I feel Briar's hand rest on my bicep and give me a disapproving look. I huff and turn back to face Potter only to have him ignore me and speak to Briar.

"Bry, it's time," Potter said with a smile. Before I can ask questions, I hear Briar in my mind.

We're speaking with Sirius about next steps. We all agreed to do it in my room since I have private quarters.

"I'll be right there, Harry. Just wait for me in the enclave around the corner, okay?" Potter nods his head and leaves with a smile on his face.

"You need to teach me how to respond back. Just you and Potter are going to be in your quarters?" I sneer back.

Draco Malfoy doesn't get jealous. I'm only protective over her because Potter was all over her earlier. Yeah, that's it.

I'm interrupted from my thoughts by Briar laughing. Glancing at her face, I see a smirk on her face and it makes me scowl at her.

"I don't understand what's so funny about that question. Maybe I should go ask Parkinson to hang out with me in my room alone and see if you think that's funny," I say maliciously. Her face falls and I see genuine hurt, but also anger in her eyes. She immediately stops laughing and goes to walk past me.

Fuck.

I spin around to stop her, but she is already almost at the door.

"Bry, I'm…" She spins around and I see her eyes flash rainbow at me in anger.

"SORRY, RIGHT?! Yeah, you're always sorry, but you always return to being a selfish, foul, malicious PRAT like your father is! Maybe I was wrong about you being different. Maybe you are just like your father and go ahead, Malfoy! Go be with Parkinson since she seems to love this side of you. I sure as hell don't," she says before storming out the door and slamming it with a loud bang.

I stare at the door in shock as her words hit me. Standing there with my mouth open, I keep opening and closing it to try and find the words to apologize even though she already left.

I might have just ruined the best thing in my life…

A/N Yeahhhh so Draco's still a prat like in the movies and books because he was raised to be one, but don't worry, we'll see Draco's soft side again in the next chapter. I strongly believe Draco was just a misunderstood kid who wanted to please his parents like most teens. Until the next chapter, see you guys later! You know what to do to get another chapter so click that button below ;)